Bill Ryerson, founder and president of Shelburne-based Population Media Center. / Courtesy photo

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Free Press Staff Writer

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Bill Ryerson can be hard to track down. In addition to serving as president of Shelburne-based Population Media Center, he is chairman and CEO of the Population Institute in Washington, D.C.

We found him in Bujumbura, Burundi, where — between local power outages — he was able to email responses to several questions.

Burlington Free Press: You’re a Chittenden County resident, right? Have you noticed any changes around here that have accompanied our growth in population?

Bill Ryerson: I have lived in Chittenden County for 31 years. Over that time, I have seen extensive sprawl developing, much like what sees in states to the south of us, like New Jersey or Pennsylvania, only on a smaller scale. The sprawl is mostly caused by population growth, although a portion of it is caused by the desire for bigger homes on bigger lots.

BFP: Any other changes?

BR: Traffic has worsened along with the growth of the population, and taxes have been raised to cover the costs of development.

BFP: Are there ways we should prepare for more dense settlement in Chittenden County?

BR: Vermont need not encourage this growth, because the costs of such growth are borne by the people — not borne by developers — such as expansion and staffing of schools, additions to roads, sewers, and other points of the infrastructure, and growth in police, fire and other municipal services.

BFP: How can we manage this?

BR: Growth centers can be planned so that growth occurs in as orderly a way as possible. However, “smart growth” is still growth, and eventually, all growth must stop because of limits on resources, particularly renewable resources. Vermont, the U.S., and the world cannot support infinite growth of the population.

BFP: Do you have an opinion on how (or if) Chittenden County should shape its population growth?

BR: Setting development limits, using sewer and water-capacity limits, zoning ordinances and other means would help to slow or stop population growth. Some counties in America have imposed growth limits and have benefited from preservation of open space, stopping escalation of taxes, reducing impact of pollution, reducing crime, and helping to avoid many of the other costs of population growth.

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BFP: So what’s stopping us?

BR: While some property owners believe they have a right to develop their land, governments also have an obligation to help preserve the quality of life for the people, even if it means buying the development rights of those with open land — a strategy that is often the least expensive option, compared with the costs of development.

BFP: Other countries face more dire consequences than we do, as the result of population growth. What sorts of lessons are there to be learned from those extremes?

BR: The U.S. is not immune from “limits to growth.” Energy sources for the U.S. economy are mostly non-renewable, which means they are depleting and becoming more expensive over time. Like China and India, the American Southwest is losing farm land because of over-pumping of underground aquifers to use in irrigation. As the water table sinks, more and more land is turning into desert — a process that is accelerating because of climate change.

In India, about 150 million people are being kept alive through unsustainable over-pumping. When the water runs out, those people will start moving across borders in a desperate attempt to find food. This process could lead to massive international security issues that would involve the U.S. in numerous ways.

BFP: What are the challenges there in Burundi?

BR: As I write this, the fertility rate here is 6.4 children borne to the average woman over her lifetime. The extreme poverty here is a direct outcome of the high birth rate, since families spend most of their incomes on the survival needs of their children: food, housing and clothing.

This leaves nothing that can be set aside in savings, so the capital markets do not allow businesses to borrow and expand. As a result, the economy is stagnant and unemployment is high.

BFP: What’s the Burundi government’s role?

BR: It has little ability to raise the funds needed to keep the infrastructure up with growing needs, because taxable incomes are not growing. And schools cannot be built fast enough, nor teachers trained and supported, to handle the growth in the number of school-age children. All of this can be reversed through lower fertility.

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BFP: How might this apply to Vermont?

BR: While the social safety net in the U.S. is much stronger than in Burundi, poverty in the U.S. is often worsened by large unplanned families. The health effects of large families are also severe in both countries, but particularly in countries like Burundi, where medical care is lacking for most of the people.

BFP: Scientists have come up with “total maximum daily loads” of nutrients for rivers and streams — the quantity that a body of water can reasonably accommodate without degrading aquatic habitat. Is there any good way to assess a maximum carrying capacity (of humans) in any given region?

BR: There are well-recognized and quite scientific means to determine human carrying capacity. The Global Footprint Network, using the concept of the Ecological Footprint (the area of land required to support an individual for all of his or her activities, from food and fiber to waste treatment to support for energy systems, etc.) has estimated that humans globally consume 50 percent more resources each year than can be sustained by natural systems. This means we are eating into the natural capital of fresh water, clean air and biodiversity that make the planet habitable. Climate change is just one measure of this “overshoot.” ...

Maintaining an appropriate natural resource “foundation” for our human development agenda, both now and in the future, is not about natural resource preservation for the sake of the environment, but rather reconstruction and preservation of planetary ecological assets for the sake of human well-being.